


Know-Nothing Archivist

by HaHeePrime



Series: Poetry [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Crisis of Faith, Poetry, dissertation, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 09:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16637600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaHeePrime/pseuds/HaHeePrime
Summary: Now that the IDW universe is ending... in the aftermath of Unicron #6... I thought I'd post this thing I've noodled on for ages, trying to distill down to exactly What Prime Is.(I care a lot)And as usual, some things can be more clearly said in poetry... even rough, amateur poetry.





	Know-Nothing Archivist

**A Poem for Optimus Prime**

He can’t be certain how his people came to be,  
Can’t remember how his own spark first ignited in his frame  
—Archivist, history-keeper, he should know these kinds of things—  
Ought to  
Remember crawling up out of the Well of All Sparks...  
Or recall whether Vector Sigma gave him soul...  
Or know he was bolted together out of factory-built parts  
(One of thousands of slaves imbued with the imperative to work, to build, to serve)  
By some tentacled Quintesson…

All these are optional creation myths.  
He doesn’t know which one, if any, is the true one.  
Ought to know  
But memory grows faulty after several million years  
And all the records are lost or corrupted.  
(All that work he put in cataloging contradictory  
Archives went up in smoke)  
And who knows, maybe the records lied. 

He cannot quite remember how it was when he was young  
Cannot be sure, despite his searching, whether life was good back then.  
Was his other self a slave, or free  
Or maybe just a little bit of both?  
The information is fragmented.  
Was he happy?  
He thinks so.  
Hopes so.  
He pictures young Orion laughing with bright Ariel and Dion  
Before Megatron betrayed and shot them  
And Orion became someone else entirely.

He can’t explain exactly what the Matrix is  
Despite having it plugged into his circuits for uncounted million years.  
The stories vary:  
Sometimes the Matrix is a conduit to ask the ancients what they knew—  
(Archivist, he likes the idea of carrying a repository of their wisdom)  
Sometimes it’s a connection between him and all the others:  
Every mech of Cybertron, living or dead  
(All weigh on him  
All pull on him  
All cry out to him to be better) 

One thing he does remember well  
(But doubts the memory because it switches if he looks at it too long):  
Is how it felt to wake up with a new thing in his chest.  
To wake up in a brand-new, bigger body  
With a bright light inside that called him to be better, braver, stronger, truer,  
Wiser,  
To become the prophet-leader of his people.  
He does feel in his soul that it was not a thing he sought. 

The Matrix built him strong to bear it  
Built him Optimus standing taller than the others  
Standing apart  
Standing alone  
It killed off the young Orion.  
Left Elita widowed, in a way—  
Though he tries daily to show her he’s still the same old foolish boy who loves her.  
But Ariel is lost to him, just as Orion’s lost to her.  
She changed too, when he changed.  
Their old selves were killed in battle,  
Though they still walk, resurrected but not quite the same.  
Their old selves are like the old world:  
A fond memory they aren’t quite sure is true. 

The old world’s something else he thought he knew, but didn’t.  
Something nigh-holy to return to  
Beacon, anchor, compass, light—  
An ideal to aspire to.  
But then he found out about Nova  
And it broke him for a while.  
His predecessor, leader whose boots he was trying to half-fill...  
Was a villain  
No excuses  
As if someone had poured tar into the holy water  
Acid in the holy water  
Bitter past polluting his present  
(Archivist, he ought to be prepared, to know these kinds of things!)  
Maybe the record’s wrong?  
But Prime knows this is wishful thinking  
The pure past he thought he knew and loved was full of lies  
Full of Deception. 

He thought right and wrong were easy  
But too many things are complicated  
Memories change when he looks too closely at the records  
Archivist, he ought to know these kinds of things,  
But he was too long filing  
Slotting everything into its place  
Collecting information without really looking at it  
Taking every byte for granted  
At face-value 

He hides his face nowadays  
Is this the reason?  
Is he hiding more than the Orion Pax behind the Prime?  
Hiding the weakness and the wrong within?  
But he was so sure he was right  
Righteous  
Informed  
Correct  
Now he asks questions of himself. 

But he has to believe in something true  
In something pure  
Even if it never existed  
Even if he made it up.  
Because belief is at the core of him.  
The core of Prime – of Optimus – even Orion Pax—  
Is Faith. 

And since he’s not sure if the past is all as pure as he had thought,  
He has to have faith in the now  
He has to find and focus on the good  
In fellow-mechs, in other races  
Even in his enemies  
He has to try  
Because to do anything else would be contrary to his very nature  
Would stop him from being not just the Prime, but Pax as well.  
Optimus Prime believes in people  
Believes even when they let him down  
Will trust and hope and trust again  
Despite deception and betrayal  
It’s a weakness  
Maybe flaw.  
But it’s the one thing he holds onto:  
A warrior’s defiant faith.  
A last-ounce shout of “Never!”  
To the voice that tells him he ought to stop loving them  
Give up on them  
Give up on hope. 

The key, the core, the heart, the soul  
Of being Prime is faith.  
A faith that’s big enough – most days –  
To hold the future brightness of all possible good things  
For everyone  
And everywhen.  
To let him smile at silly things  
And laugh  
And play  
Be filled with joy  
Because he chooses to be so.  
In spite of ever-present doubt.  
He chooses faith  
Chooses to hope  
Believe  
And love.  
It gives him and the ones who follow after light.  
It makes Optimus... Prime

 

**Author's Note:**

> Prime means a lot to me. It's IMPORTANT that his core-being remains true to some specific, Peter Cullen-based idea of who he is and how he acts and what he represents. And of course honestly -- as if anybody ever wondered -- this is more about the way I bumble through the world, chin-out with stubbornness and determined optimism, than it is about an imaginary giant red robot. But I think the world needs Optimus Prime. Needs him and all the other characters and real-life people who are like him in this one thing: That they believe and hope and love, and act on those things daily.


End file.
